[ At Claude's almost-implication, Hilda's gaze turns up towards him with a glint in her eyes. Her voice suddenly turns arching, much in the same way her eyebrow raises. ]
Are you implying that Waffle is just an average name then?
[ There's a playfulness to her look, a precursor to her reaching out and pinching him or flicking him in the forehead like she so often had before. Her hands moves as if to do just that before she halts.
Before. Hilda catches on the word, realizing that whether she liked it or not, there is now a before and an after with them, one that couldn't simply point to their respective arrivals in this world. One that didn't just imply the before and after of a war, but one that she can't turn a blind eye to no matter how hard she tries. Her heart sinks a little further.
She sniffs, body shifting slightly back and away from him as the corners of her lips lifting to show that there's no harm done. Admittedly she's relieved that he hadn't dismissed it as a stupid, silly idea and that he still didn't mind sharing something so childish between them. Nervousness still jitters in the air around her though. ]
Cloud is cute, but actually... [ There's another pause despite herself, a vocal stumble and hesitation all wrapped up into one. ] I was thinking that regardless what we name it, that it could be in Almyran.
[ There's more she wants to say.
Like how she has inklings that he'd like to stay in Abraxas, but that wouldn't diminish his homesickness. That even if she is the airhead she claims to be, knowing someone as well as she knew Claude, she could piece together the parts of a picture that had been slowly laid out before her: favouring Almyran pine needles for his tea, donning a sash made with a finer weave and brilliant dyes than any craftsman in Fodlan could make, instinctively calling Dawn by her real name, speaking fondly of a place like it was an old friend – even without finding the letter, she knew when a heart she held close to her own yearned for other things whether that be another person or a place.
But perhaps most of all she just wants to say she's sorry for being selfish and awful. That she understands being away for a decade can't be easy and she wouldn't fault him anymore for returning, even if that means never seeing him again because everyone deserves to return to a place they call home. It feels silly to offer him pieces of a place she's never been to (a pine branch pressed between resin as a bookmark, a terrarium meant to mimic what she imagines Almyra to look like, a chance to call this wyvern something in his mother tongue) but it's all she can offer in the hopes it will help soothe his yearning somehow.
Instead she lapses into embarrassed silence as she forces herself to stay looking at him. ]
no subject
Are you implying that Waffle is just an average name then?
[ There's a playfulness to her look, a precursor to her reaching out and pinching him or flicking him in the forehead like she so often had before. Her hands moves as if to do just that before she halts.
Before. Hilda catches on the word, realizing that whether she liked it or not, there is now a before and an after with them, one that couldn't simply point to their respective arrivals in this world. One that didn't just imply the before and after of a war, but one that she can't turn a blind eye to no matter how hard she tries. Her heart sinks a little further.
She sniffs, body shifting slightly back and away from him as the corners of her lips lifting to show that there's no harm done. Admittedly she's relieved that he hadn't dismissed it as a stupid, silly idea and that he still didn't mind sharing something so childish between them. Nervousness still jitters in the air around her though. ]
Cloud is cute, but actually... [ There's another pause despite herself, a vocal stumble and hesitation all wrapped up into one. ] I was thinking that regardless what we name it, that it could be in Almyran.
[ There's more she wants to say.
Like how she has inklings that he'd like to stay in Abraxas, but that wouldn't diminish his homesickness. That even if she is the airhead she claims to be, knowing someone as well as she knew Claude, she could piece together the parts of a picture that had been slowly laid out before her: favouring Almyran pine needles for his tea, donning a sash made with a finer weave and brilliant dyes than any craftsman in Fodlan could make, instinctively calling Dawn by her real name, speaking fondly of a place like it was an old friend – even without finding the letter, she knew when a heart she held close to her own yearned for other things whether that be another person or a place.
But perhaps most of all she just wants to say she's sorry for being selfish and awful. That she understands being away for a decade can't be easy and she wouldn't fault him anymore for returning, even if that means never seeing him again because everyone deserves to return to a place they call home. It feels silly to offer him pieces of a place she's never been to (a pine branch pressed between resin as a bookmark, a terrarium meant to mimic what she imagines Almyra to look like, a chance to call this wyvern something in his mother tongue) but it's all she can offer in the hopes it will help soothe his yearning somehow.
Instead she lapses into embarrassed silence as she forces herself to stay looking at him. ]